Ryan's practice incorporates painting, video, music and critical texts. He likes them to be seen as autonomous practices that share commonalities.

Notions of abstraction and indeterminacy are central to his practice both in the visual arts and the music. His critical texts explore these issues as dominant subject matter. These texts have historical and theoretical dimensions and provide the context for his multi-faceted practice.

In this respect, the New York School of painting and music: Pollock, Newman, De Kooning and Cage, Wolf and Brown, inform these debates about abstraction and indeterminacy. Together with this the European avant-garde also forms an interrogation of modernism for the present: Sani, Nono, Boulez and the visual artists Vedova, Forge and Frize for example.

These musicians and artists develop links between modernism and contemporary art. However, Cage not withstanding, the interdisciplinary nature of Ryan's project, encompassing as it does visual art, music and criticism, sets itself apart from these other artists.

Talking Painting: dialogues with twelve contemporary abstract painters, Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-27629-2

This book is the result of research into contemporary abstraction and various theoretical positions deduced from its practice. Contributors included Arthur Danto, Andrew Benjamin, Peter Schjeldahl, David Joselit, Bernard Frize, Mary Heilmann, Jonathan Lasker, Shirley Kaneda, David Reed, Jessica Stockholder. This also connects more generally with an exploration of modernist abstraction and its legacies, refracted in recent practices through its reformulation within installation and other modes of working. Essentially, the work and its theoretical/historical complement re-examines the possibilities of thinking through 'non-representational' form, and the questions of meaning that arise from this.

This text was well received, Mike Dawson writing in Flux magazine, "David Ryan's insightful 'Talking Painting' will undoubtedly become a definitive addition to the abstract artist's theoretical armour [...] a definitive text in the making". Ryan provides a critical overview and interviews throughout the book. It has proved a useful source book for students at PhD and MA level.

Exhibition Catalogue, Tate Publications, 2001 (ISBN: 1-85437-379-X)

Ryan was invited in 2001 by Christopher Grunneberg, Director of the Tate Liverpool. to write the catalogue essay for a major international exhibition on contemporary painting. The aim of the piece is to give a meaningful historical and theoretical context to a diverse collection of the work of eight contemporary abstract painters -thrust into the curatorial limelight as another 'painting revival'.

This essay was reviewed in Art Press and has led to a number of related articles commissioned by Contemporary Visual Arts on artists represented in the exhibition such as David Reed and Franz Ackeramann.

Jonathan Harris of Liverpool University edited Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Painting: Hybridity, Hegemony, Historicism. Liverpool University Press 2004 which used the Hybrids exhibition in general and Ryan's catalogue essay in particular as a starting point.

Dal Niente 3: the avant-gardes of Venice and Rome

Performances held in The Union Chapel, Italian Cultural Institute, and Cochrane Theatre, London 2003

Dal Niente is an ongoing series of concerts which attempts to explore lesser known - or rarely performed - aspects of modern music. Dal Niente is a loose collective of performers and was formed by David Ryan and Ross Lorraine in 1998, in order to establish quality performances for modernist and experimental works, and to provide a wider context for their understanding and appreciation. It functions as a concert series drawing on flexible instrumental ensembles and soloists for specific events and recordings and brings together music from diverse traditions and outlooks within both the experimental and modernist milieu. This concert series is a collaboration between Dal Niente projects in London and Sonora in Rome, the Italian Cultural Institute, the City University, Chelsea college of Art and the Cochrane Theatre, London.

Ryan conceived and directed the series of Dal Niente 3 which looked at the two schools of Venice (dominated by Luigi Nono) and Rome (equally dominated by Franco Evangelisti). Ryan brought together a number of pieces of new music that had not been heard in this country before. It provided a forum for several contemporary Italian composers from Rome to present works at the City University's Electronic Music Studios, also to hear Luigi Nono's music realized by one of his assistants, Alvise Vidolin, and performances by the Italian virtuoso pianist Oscar Pizzo. There was also a presentation of a collaboration with Nicola Sani which included a video piece by Ryan, exploring the notions of abstraction and Indeterminacy across acoustic and visual fields.

The events were supported by The Arts Council of great Britten, The Britten-Pears foundation, The Holst Foundation, CEMAT, The Italian Institute, the Cochrane Theatre, Sonora. The London Institute and Henrichsen.

Dal Niente 4: Christian Wolff at 70

The series of Dal Niente 4, conceived and directed by Ryan, was made up of three major concerts (two at St Giles, Cripplesgate, London and one at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge) to celebrate Christian Wolff's 70th year. The series focused on pieces by the composer from 1950's to the present. In 1950 Wolff became a student of Cage and is the last surviving member of the so-called 'New York School' which, as well as Wolff and Cage, included Earle Brown, Morton Feldman and the pianist and composer, David Tudor.

Christian Wolff is a key figure in exploring indeterminacy in musical composition and performance - a concept central to Ryan's research. In Dal Niente 4 Ryan provided an overview of Wolff's work for English audiences including such substantial works as Wolff's 'Changing the System'.

Dal Niente 4 had a number of reviews:

"Outstanding musicians", Paul Driver, Sunday Times.
"Stellar performances" CD Hotlist, on Earle Brown, Chamber music, Matchless Recordings.

The 'Christian Wolff at 70' concert at Kettle's Yard was reviewed in The Wire December 2004 p.85 and nominated by The Wire as 'highlight of the year' 2004. The concert was funded by the Britten-Pears foundation, the Holst Foundation and The Hinrichsen Foundation.

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